Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Paul Krugman's "The Conscience of a Liberal"

Paul Krugman's "The Conscience of a Liberal" (Hardcover) Advance Order for October 15th Release.By Paul KrugmanBUZZFLASH REVIEWS

We haven't received an advance copy yet from the publisher, W.W. Norton, but if it's by Paul Krugman, count us on board.

This is not a collection of past brilliant Krugman columns (aren't they all?), but rather an original 352 page book on the conscience of a liberal, and no one has more of a liberal conscience in journalism than Paul Krugman.

We also love the guy because when we first interviewed him a few years ago (before we started recording), he said that he found BuzzFlash was so refreshingly outside of the mainstream American media in our perspective that he thought we were published from Europe.

A higher compliment could not have been offered at the time from one of our heroes. Now, thankfully, a lot of scribes have caught up to us.

But this book is by Krugman, not BuzzFlash.

It's the beginning of the fall rollout of bestsellers leading up to the holiday season. We are sure "The Conscience of a Liberal" will be among them.

To be released on October 15th.

From the publisher, W.W. Norton:

This wholly original new work by the best-selling author of The Great Unraveling challenges America to reclaim the values that made it great.

With this major new volume, Paul Krugman, “the heir apparent to Galbraith” (Alan Blinder) and, today’s most widely read economist, studies the past eighty years of American history, from the reforms that tamed the harsh inequality of the Gilded Age to the unraveling of that achievement and the reemergence of immense economic and political inequality since the 1970s.

Seeking to understand both what happened to middle-class America and what it will take to achieve a “new New Deal,” Krugman has created his finest book to date, a work that weaves together a nuanced account of three generations of history with sharp political, social, and economic analysis. This book, written with Krugman’s trademark ability to explain complex issues simply, will transform the debate about American social policy in much the same way as did John Kenneth Galbraith's deeply influential book, The Affluent Society.